


For Now, For Good, Forever (Goodbye)

by buckingfucky (Furious_Winter)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Post-Civil War, civil war spoilers, emetophobia tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6580198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Furious_Winter/pseuds/buckingfucky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>**WARNING** **CONTAINS PROBABLE SPOILERS FOR CIVIL WAR**</p><p>If you haven’t yet seen Civil War (like me) and you’ve been avoiding spoilers (unlike me) then you’ll probably want to pass this one by. I’m going to skip a summary just to spare people who might even accidentally glance at it. I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone. </p><p>This is based on the rumored mid-credit scene, but more than a few details have been changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Now, For Good, Forever (Goodbye)

Steve doesn’t know. _Can’t_ know, or else he wouldn’t allow it to happen. 

Bucky’s head swims with fragmented memories, conflicting feelings and incomplete thoughts, and it’s nauseating. He’s not sure that what he’s doing is right, but he feels it’s for the best; for him, for Steve, for everyone. They hit a bump in the road and Bucky fights the urge to vomit, holding it in until his stomach settles back from a maelstrom. He wrings his hands together; one flesh and weathered, the other shiny and new and made of vibranium, courtesy of T’Challa. 

The Wakandan king is up front, driving Bucky and Steve to the secret location where he’s going to be put in ice once again. His stomach tries again to lurch as he’s reminded of this, but he steels himself and takes deep, slow breaths. Steve must notice, because he reaches out and puts a calming hand on Bucky’s human arm. Bucky looks up to where Steve sits, directly across from him. His friend’s eyes are sad, but comforting. Briefly, Bucky begins to wonder if Steve’s going to try one last time to talk him out of this, but only offers him a weak smile. 

“It’s gonna be okay, Buck.” His words are quiet, confident. “You’ll be out before you know it. Won’t feel like any time’s passed at all.”

But Steve doesn’t know. 

Bucky nods and tries to force a grin, focuses on Steve’s hand on his arm. He knows he needs Steve to be here, but a part of him wonders if this would be easier without him. There are a dozen reasons why Bucky should go back into cryo, but one in particular stands out from the rest. And he’s glad she isn’t here. 

Steve gives his arm one more squeeze and then leans back in his seat. He clears his throat, “You know you don’t have to do this. Not if you don’t want to.”

“I know.” Bucky agrees, hoping he’ll drop it. “But it’s-”

Steve cuts him off, “...for the best.” He sighs. “Right.”

He _is_ right. They’ve been over it more times than Bucky cares to remember. He’s not just a danger to himself and those he cares about, he’s a threat to the entire world. They don’t know how to “turn off” Bucky’s trigger words, don’t know if there are more and don’t know who might know them, use them like Zemo did to turn Bucky back into the killing machine lurking somewhere in the depths of his brain, perhaps even his soul. 

Steve seems to read his thoughts and offers a reminder, “T’Challa’s got a team working on it. Good men and women, brilliant. It won’t be long.”

Bucky nods. It could be true, that the Winter Soldier T’Challa acquired will hold the secrets and answers to a cure for Bucky and the others like him, but… “Did you want to be found?” Bucky asks, his voice cracking. 

Steve frowns. “What?”

“When you crashed the plane.” he whispers, somehow gaining a shred of composure. 

“I…” Steve looks lost, like this was the last question he expected Bucky to ask. After a moment, he shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Putting his arms across his stomach in an attempt to console it, Bucky leans forward and speaks to the side, towards the front of the Wakandan military van. He can see T’Challa through the plexiglass and knows he can’t hear him, but he whispers anyway. “Natasha read the report. Said you could’ve given Agent Carter your coordinates.” He swallows and looks Steve hard in the eyes. “But you didn’t.” 

Steve shifts in his seat. If he’s uncomfortable, he sure looks it. “When you fell,” he starts, but then then lowers his head and takes a deep breath. “After Shmidt, when I knew what I had to do, that I had to crash the plane, it just felt like that was it. That my story was over and I knew how it ended.” He clears his throat again and looks back up to Bucky. “I knew I should’ve gone after you, Bucky, but I chose not to. I put duty ahead of everything else, ahead of you, and even though that may have been the right thing to do, it didn’t _feel_ like it.”

Bucky’s not sure if that was the answer he was hoping for, isn’t sure if he was hoping for anything at all. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t been found. That I’d just died in the ice. It would’ve been better that way.”

“Don’t-” Worried distress envelopes Steve’s face. “Don’t say that, Bucky. If it hadn’t been you it would’ve been someone else.”

Bucky doesn’t mean to sound angry, but it comes out that way nonetheless. “But it _was_ me.” 

Steve looks hurt and Bucky immediately feels guilty. “It just felt right. Like I was going into the ice _with_ you, what I should’ve done on the train.” He shakes his head and looks back down to his feet. “I saved a lot of lives that day, but I hadn’t saved the one life that mattered more to me than any other. I don’t know what else to say, Bucky.”

And it doesn’t matter. The van slows as they arrive at their destination and the feeling of dread Bucky’s been ignoring roars through him. This is it, this is the end of the line, and Steve doesn’t know. He _can’t_ know, or he wouldn’t be going along with this.

They exit the van, and Bucky runs on autopilot as they enter the facility. _Or is it a bunker?_ He wonders momentarily, having noticed little more than the guards they pass and before he even realizes it, they’re standing in front of the chamber where he’s to be kept. 

Steve turns to T’Challa and thanks him for offering to do this, but adds, “You know that if they find out he’s here, they’ll come for him.”

T’Challa is stoic. “They can try.” He then looks to Bucky and asks, “Are you ready?” and Bucky nods involuntarily. 

It has to happen. 

Steve looks awkward, like he doesn’t know what to say. He probably doesn’t. He gives Bucky a sad smile. “Well, I guess this is goodbye for now.”

 _For good,_ Bucky thinks, _forever._ And Steve doesn’t know. 

Steve doesn’t know that _Bucky isn’t coming back out of the ice this time._ T’Challa has taken enough of a risk to his country by offering to store him here, a fugitive to the entire world, all because T’Challa somehow feels that he owes Bucky a debt. And Bucky feels that it’s undeserved, but he’s willing to take it… if only to save Steve. 

Steve, the person that is now a fugitive himself because he chose Bucky. Steve, that can’t seem to forgive himself. Steve, that defiantly started a war for Bucky at the cost of innocent lives. That would start countless others if it meant saving his friend. That has a real chance of happiness and might throw it all away for a broken soldier.

And Bucky can’t let him risk that. He’s not worth it, not when Steve means so much to him. 

Bucky’s always loved Steve. His memories are few and fleeting, but with each new one that surfaces it becomes clearer to him _just how much_ he loves him. His friend, his partner, his soulmate if anyone ever was. He wants Steve to be happy, to move on from everything that’s happened to the both of him even if that means…

His stomach clenches again and he feels dizzy. Bucky doesn’t want to think about it, not now, but the memory surfaces anyway, unbeckoned and glaring. Steve _kissed her._ Right in front of him. And even though he smiled along with his new friend Sam, was happy for Steve in the moment, something inside him snapped when Steve turned and looked at him after. It was like his old self had dammed these feelings up behind an impenetrable wall, but after everything Bucky’s been through, there wasn’t enough of his old self left to hold back the deluge of emotions that coursed through him. 

Bucky knows Steve wants to be there for him, wants to help him recover and see him get better, but Bucky’s not sure he wants to anymore. Steve can’t be there for him the way he needs him to be, _wants_ him to be. And he doesn’t want to hold him back, keep him from living some semblance of a normal life while he tries to reassemble the puzzle of himself, trying to grasp at the full picture after having lost half the pieces. He starts to cry, and when Steve embraces him, he breaks down. 

“Hey, hey.” Steve’s voice is soothing, one arm wrapped tightly around him while the other gently caresses the back of his neck, “It’s gonna be alright. We’ll get through this.”

Steve’s not wrong. But Steve doesn’t know. It _is_ gonna be alright. Bucky’s made sure of it. He’s used the imaginary debt T’Challa owes him to ensure that he’ll stay frozen forever, until he’s forgotten and none of this will matter anymore, until the end of human existence and he thaws out naturally, killing him. Steve deserves this. He deserves to forget, to move on, to have a happy life with her. It’s more than Bucky could ever offer him, and even though it breaks his heart to lie to Steve, it really is for the best. For everyone, for now, for good, forever. 

Bucky tightens his embrace on Steve. He never wants to let go, wants to stay there in his arms where everything feels better even though it isn’t. But he knows he has to let go. 

So he does.

He steps into the chamber, keeping his eyes down as the door shuts in front of him. He can’t look Steve in the face, in the eyes. It would be too much. But when he hears that unforgettable hiss, somehow both strange and familiar in his cacophony of shattered memories, he looks up. He knows what’s coming, has felt it dozens of times before and yet it still feels new and unknown, terrifying. There’s a small window where he can see out into the room, but he can’t force his eyes to focus. His vision is blurred and he realizes that his eyes are still filled with tears. Primally, he wipes at them with his human hand, and sees his reflection in the glass. 

The cold begins to surround him, entering him, filling him with a pain he didn’t know he remembered. He raises his metal arm to the glass, and sees Steve beyond it. Maybe Steve’s crying, Bucky can’t be sure because his vision is going blurry again, but he tries to hold onto this memory. This memory of Steve making good on his word, here with him right up until the end of the line… even if Steve doesn’t know it. He feels the cold taking hold of him, and he watches Steve, looks into his eyes as ice creeps up the glass until he can’t see beyond it anymore. Bucky tries to hold onto that memory, his last, frozen in his mind, as he loses control of himself. 

Bucky closes his eyes and succumbs to the cold.

**Author's Note:**

> I do plan on writing more for this, but I want to actually see CA:CW before I make anything concrete. It'll be... kind of long, and it won't _all_ be angsty. Lots of action. Lots of Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Black Panther and Falcon (that's my intention, anyway). And make no mistake, this will be a Stucky fic... but overall angsty as fuck. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading. :)


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